Immunity Shots Recipe
Ginger, turmeric, orange and lemon juice blended and strained into six small shots. About 20 mg of vitamin C each, and what a shot can and cannot do.
- Total
- 15 min
- Serves
- 6
Immunity shots are small glasses of fresh ginger, turmeric and citrus juice. The name is a selling point, not a medical claim: no drink prevents a cold. To make six shots, blend three ounces of ginger and an ounce of turmeric with the juice of three oranges and two lemons and half a cup of water, strain, and stir in a tablespoon of honey.
What an immunity shot can and cannot do
The one nutrient in the shot with a recognised link to the immune system is vitamin C. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements says that vitamin C helps the immune system work properly, and also that for most people vitamin C supplements do not reduce the risk of getting a cold. People who take it regularly might have slightly shorter or milder colds; taking it after the symptoms start does not appear to help.
The orange and lemon juice in the whole batch contain about 125 milligrams of vitamin C by USDA figures, so one shot has about 20. The same fact sheet gives 90 milligrams a day for men and 75 for women as the recommended amount. A shot covers about a quarter of that, and so does a third of an orange.
This page makes no promise beyond that. It is a sharp, spicy juice.
Recipe
Ginger Turmeric Citrus Shots
Small shots of fresh ginger, turmeric, orange juice and lemon juice with a little honey, blended and strained. Six 2-ounce shots.
- Prep
- 15 min
- Total
- 15 min
- Serves
- 6
- Cuisine
- American
Ingredients
- 3 ounces fresh ginger (scrubbed and sliced)
- 1 ounce fresh turmeric root (scrubbed and sliced)
- 3/4 cup orange juice (from about 3 oranges)
- 1/3 cup lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
- 1/2 cup cold water
- 1 tablespoon honey
Instructions
- Put the ginger, the turmeric, the orange juice, the lemon juice and the water in a blender and blend on high speed for 1 minute, until the roots are finely ground.
- Pour the mixture through a fine sieve or a nut milk bag into a jug, pressing or squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Discard the pulp.
- Stir in the honey until dissolved.
- Pour into six small bottles or glasses of about 2 ounces and refrigerate. Shake before drinking.
Ginger and turmeric shots without a juicer
A blender and a sieve do the work. Sliced thin, the roots break down in a minute. The pulp that stays in the sieve is fibre and is thrown away; squeezing it in a nut milk bag gets out more juice than pressing it with a spoon.
- No peeling. Scrub the roots. The skin stays behind in the sieve.
- Turmeric stains. It colours fingers, boards and plastic blender jars yellow. Wash everything at once, and use a glass jug.
- Ground turmeric can replace the fresh root: 1 teaspoon for the batch.
How strong, how sweet
Three ounces of ginger make a shot that burns in the throat. Two ounces give a milder one. The honey takes the edge off the lemon and can be left out.
For a longer drink, pour a shot into a glass of sparkling water or into hot water. Other drinks with citrus on this site are the Medicine Ball tea, with lemonade and honey, and the Costa Rican tea, with lime and cinnamon.
Five days in the refrigerator
The shots keep five days in closed bottles in the refrigerator. The solids settle, so shake the bottle. For longer keeping, freeze the mixture in an ice cube tray and thaw a cube in a glass overnight.
A fruit drink for a whole glass is the white cranberry strawberry juice.
Did you make this?
Let others know how it turned out.
